The Missing, $1.5 million Bugatti

By

Robert Frank

Sep 8, 2009 2:45 pm ET

Bloomberg News

The Bugatti Veyron, parked outside the Schlosshotel Kronberg, in Kronberg, Germany, in 2006.

The Bugatti Veyron, a $1.5 million sportscar, has garnered gushes of publicity from auto journalists and car freaks since its launch in 2005. Just last week I was invited by Bugatti to drive the new $2.1 million Bugatti Grand Sport (I politely declined).

But now the Bugatti has gotten into an intriguing publicity scrape.

A piece by Ronnie Schreiber in The Truth About Cars tells the story of Barry Zekelman, a reclusive steel-tube magnate who owns vacation homes in Paradise Valley and the Caribbean as well as a 164-foot yacht named Man of Steel.

He also likes fast cars, and in September 2008, Mr. Zekelman went to Bugatti Troy, in suburban Detroit, to purchase a 2009 Veyron, in Italian red, for $1,553,354.57.

Mr. Zekelman paid a $428,000 deposit and production started on the car. He wired the rest of the
money in December, with an expected delivery date of March 2009.

That is when the trouble started. Bugatti, owned by Volkswagen, said it would send Mr. Zeckleman the car but would label it a 2008. Mr. Zeckelman said he was promised a 2009.

“Why would I buy a 2008 at the end of 2008 when I ordered a 2009?,” Mr. Zeckelman told Truth About Cars.

Yet apparently the factory had decided to skip the 2009 model year. So, according to a lawsuit filed by Mr. Zeckelman, Bugatti sold Mr. Zeckleman’s car to another buyer and have yet to refund him the money.

A spokeswoman for Bugatti said the lawsuit is a matter between the buyer and the dealer (though the dealer isn’t named in the suit).

No one should feel sorry for a guy who didn’t get the right model year on his $1.5 million ride. My question is, why did Bugatti skip an entire model year?

The obvious answer would be slow sales of hyper-priced super-cars in the financial crisis. In a year when sales of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Bentleys and others are down 30% to 50%, Bugattis would seem a tough sell–despite their uniqueness and the wealth of their buyers.

Yet Bugatti sales don’t seem to be suffering. When the Veyron was launched, Bugatti said it would sell 300 of the cars. It has sold all but about 30 of them, according to a spokeswoman. It plans to sell about sell about 150 of the new, open-cockpit Grand Sport, which will start with a 2010 model year.

Asked why they skipped a year, the spokeswoman said, “They made a 2008 model year and then the 2010, which comes with some of the upgrades of the Grand Sport. With such low volume, it’s not like each new year another model comes out.”

I’m still baffled. Why do you think the company skipped 2009? And will one lucky collector ever get a 2009 model?